Halloween Decor {just a couple years late part two}

If you didn’t see it, here is my last post, in which I paper mache’d some skulls for my front entry way, I used the same technique for my mummy, head, with just a few added details. Here is my mummy head…

Pretty scary/awesome right? My kids named it Nana as a joke (not so sure if my mom/the kids Nana thinks it’s that funny…..) I was inspired by these pictures of Egyptian mummies….

Just like before I began with a plastic skull, but this time the skull had a lower jaw too.

I began by stuffing the nose and eye sockets with balled up tissue paper, and then building up layers of paper mache over the balled up paper, molding it to get the right shape.

I covered the whole head in paper as well. For the eyelashes I took some brown faux fur, and cut thin slivers off of it, and then used more paper to be the eyelids over the top of the fur.

At this stage, I felt like the cheeks looked a little to angular and harsh for a mummy, so I decided to beef them out with paper.

I took multiple sheets of tissue paper, and stretched them out one at a time over the gap between the jaw and the cheek. The more layers I put the stronger it got. (I also filled in the temple this way)

as you can see the paper just floats, but the strength does come from the layering, so it won’t just punch through if someone touches it.

Here it is with one side done, but not the other, you can see what a huge difference it makes to the face.

I also built up around where the lips would be, and mad some ears by coiling wet tissue paper, and then adding more paper over the top.

Once I got the shape I wanted on everything, I let it all dry for a few hours.

I decided I liked the finish on the black tar covered mummy, so I painted the whole head black (mostly avoiding the eyelashes, but if they got a little clumpy, it didn’t bother me since they are mummy eyelashes.) I then dry brushed brown over the top. (I also stained the teeth brown.

I then cut bits of fur off of the faux fur I had, and glued hair on for the head and eyebrows.

The head is shiny here because the glue was still wet.

As a final touch I wrapped some brown cheesecloth around the head, and it was ready for display.

I keep it inside of my house, since I think it may be too tempting to steal if it was outside my door, but the kids talk to “Nana” every time they come in or out of the house, and they ask about her through out the year too 🙂